Dishnet DSL, December 13, 2000
Santanu Borah remembers Osho
I pity the people who malign Osho for they give away their ignorance in their words. However, I also feel they are smart because they know that Osho does not hate the crawlers and would happily listen to them before telling them, in his sweet metaphors, that the ignorant must not be baited, much like Jesus who said something similar about sinners.
However, what I hate most are educated people, and that includes mediapersons with noses in heaven that make stupid remarks like, “Oh, Osho, that sex maniac.” However, before starting on the defence, I immediately feel happy because I see a little light – these people only see the sex, and nothing more. They appear to be sex maniacs because, if Osho would not have talked about love and sex in such an enlightened manner, they would hardly have anything more to talk about him. And yes, Osho does not require to be defended. There is only one thing that you could do – accept him.
In a way, Osho is from that planet most of us know or care the least about – Planet Earth. His teachings are an important force because it does not take pride in being rooted in the past. He does not care much for the Vedas, because, as he says, they were for a different breed of people. Not for the modern man, who gives his life away to apartments and the mad rush to make the money make money. Neither does he care for the numerous rituals that our religions deem necessary. Modern life is different, and so are ways to reach the inner you in our clustered world.
Trying to talk about Osho is like trying to capture the Indian ocean in a goldfish bowl. It is another matter that Osho would tell you even that is possible. But what I like best about Osho is the way he makes me want to be honest. He was born in Jabalpur, a small town in Madhya Pradesh and grew up into a man who of the world. He had transcended nationality. He set aside an old lie that India was a spiritual country – that was in the past when it was affluent.
Today, it is another country trying for everything that West has. Those that resign to God do so because there is no way one can break out of the fatalism that grips a poor country. In fact, he says that to be aware of the self, everything that makes you deviate from it must be wiped away. A poor man will have a hard time understanding that wealth is of no consequence because the lack will make him eat dirt daily. So, affluence is a necessary condition to understand that it is not the end of everything. In fact, it is the beginning. A poor man understands that only if he is someone like Kabir, a mystic that Osho ‘rates’ higher than even Gautama Buddha, for Buddha was a Prince.
Finally, the time when I was truly aware about Osho, he had already died. Though, many tell me teachings are what matter, I would have still like to see the man who looks so radiant even in photographs. Being around such positive energy would have redeemed me in many ways. So the next best thing is to try to attain the Buddha that is in us, and that is what Osho wanted from mankind.
Keeping all this in view the present ugliness of copyright battles and other nonsense that is absolutely against the spirit of Osho’s teaching (and particularly childish) strengthens the view that there will be only one Osho, no successors to put the controversies to rest. Unfortunately, none of his disciples have attained the Buddha in them. From here the walk is uphill, because people like us, who are not sanyasins, must keep him alive in all his truth without seeking out the pettiness that is going on in his Commune and elsewhere. We must quietly practise him in our lives.
